I've seen numbers skewed every which way indicating who "owns" the KC market, but in reality no one school brings a majority of the city. My personal observation of the town is it is about 30% each to KU and MU, 20% KSU (with the KSU number increasing slightly during fb season and the KU number dropping), 10% Iowa and Nebraska, and 10% to whichever game happens to be on while they're prepping their mullet for sunday.
Nobody wants only 30% of KC, that's like getting a 3some with 2 really fat chicks, sure it's a 3some, but you don't really want it. In all honesty MU is the only one of the KU/MU/KSU triangle that is worth something by themselves because they also bring in part of the St. Louis market and almost all of the rest of the state. It's not a matter of KU and KSU being tied together, it's that when these conferences really get down to who they want KU and KSU by themselves aren't worth very much, they either will want both or 1+MU. If a conference where to take KU by themselves, they're basically gambling that several things will happen 1) KSU ends up outside the BCS, 2) enough KSU fans will make KU their BCS team (they obviously don't know our tucks well) to grab at least 40-50% of KC 60+% of Wichita and 75+% of the rest of the state, 3) sometime in the next 20 years KU develops some semblance of a solid football program so they can capture the next couple generations in this area.